Across the cracked diner booth
our eyes hold on to each other,
desperate to keep the moment alive,
to speak for the voices silent in grief.
It was just one more thing we lost,
one more mere second that would fade
as time and distance would pull us
farther from where we wanted to be.
There was nothing stopping us
except the separate dreams
driving us to our destinations.
It was possible to make things work,
that perhaps later on
at another step
we could meet and continue what grew
in such extraordinary depth
but reality cracked us open
like the table where we last saw us
there would be no later, no maybe, no possibly,
just one more thing we had to leave behind.